Where are the Appeal Reports, Minister Creecy?

Applicants for commercial fishing rights under Fishing Rights Allocation Process 2021/2022 were required to file their respective administrative appeals in terms of section 80 of the Marine Living Resources Act, 18 of 1998 (“the MLRA”), read with regulation 5 of GN Regulation 1111 of 2 September 1998 (“the Fisheries Regulations”) by 29 July 2022.

Regulation 5(3) of the Fisheries Regulations provides as follows:

“(3) The appeal contemplated in sub-regulation (2) shall be served by the appellant on the person against whose decision the appeal is made, and that person shall submit a report on the appeal to the minister within 30 days after the appeal had been served on him or her."

As such, regulation 5(3) obligates each delegated authority to produce the appeal reports within 30 days after the appeals were filed. That 30-day period expired on 30 August 2022. The obligation is peremptory. 

So where are these appeal reports? They should have been made available to all applicants and appellants by now. 

Should the Hake Long Line TAC Be Increased?

I recently tweeted about the possibility that the current portion of the hake long line total allowable catch allocation of the global hake TAC could be increased from its current 6.5% of global TAC to 10% of global TAC. 

The proposal was first mooted in the 2021 hake trawl and hake long line fishing policies. The exact wording is the following: 

   " The Department is considering implementing changes in the hake TAC sectoral apportionment:

• 􏰀 Longline apportionment increased from 6.551% to 10% of the hake TAC, subject to further investigation on possible impacts on resource dynamics and how the 3.449% of the TAC that would be required for this will be sourced."

The hake long line fishery historically fished exclusively over the "hard grounds", thus avoiding significant conflict with trawlers. This has changed over recent times as long liners have increased their fishing footprint and now also target "black" hake as well as the more lucrative export PQ "white hake" due to changing market dynamics and pricing. 

This has necessarily meant greater numbers of incidences where trawlers and long liners have come into conflict on the fishing grounds.  

It now appears that the department may want to expropriate the 3.449% of additional TAC from the hake deep-sea trawl fishery. The hake deep-sea trawl fishery presently has 83% of the global hake TAC. 

On the face of it, the shifting of 3,4% of the TAC from trawl to long line appears superficial for the trawl industry but substantial for the hake long line fishery as it would increase effort and catch in the fishery by almost 50%. 

However, to do so lawfully, the department's hake fisheries manager must consider the ecological, social and economic consequences of such a proposed decision. In order to do so, a comprehensive socio-economic and ecological study will be required. And not the garbage that the department produced last year and labelled "socio-economic impact assessment studies"!

What we do already know and understand from detailed impact assessments undertaken by the hake deep-sea trawl industry to date (I have not seen any independent assessment reports from the hake long line industry) is that - 

1. trawl creates more jobs per ton of fish and shifting TAC to long line will result in a net loss of jobs;
2. trawl obviously accounts for a larger portion of investments in the fishing and support industries and shifting TAC to long line will result in a net loss of investments;
3. long line targets adult hake and increasing effort and TAC threatens the biological health of the hake stock, which in turn could prejudice the trawl hake MSC certification which has been maintained since 2004; and
4. while the deep-sea trawl hake fishery has consistently landed its entire portion of the hake TAC over the past decade, the long line fishery has landed less than 75% of its entire portion of the hake TAC.

The obvious question is why would the department tamper with and potentially prejudice the most lucrative, well managed. and sustainable fishery in the country? (Obviously, we are dealing with an ANC government whose policies across our economy perversely just veer toward destruction and ruin). 

But the Minister also finds herself in a legal bind as she effectively has no fish to allocate the hake long line sector on appeal because her delegated authority set aside only 2% of the TAC for the appeals process and  no more than 0.6% of the TAC is now left for the appeals process. 

So, what to do? The solution actually stares this Minister directly in the face. The present global Hake TAC apportionment bizarrely allocates 1.8433% to hake handline and 1.5% to small scale fishing!

There is no small-scale hake fishing sector. It is a fantasy; a myth. Hake simply are not available inshore for any form of hake handlining. For that reason, the hake handline fishery is a non-existent fishery today - it existed for a very short period between 2003 and 2005 and ought to have been terminated as a standalone fishery by 2007. Combined, these two non-existent fisheries account for 3.3% of the global hake TAC. Scrap the hake handline and "small-scale" hake apportionments and allocate it to long line. 

Then, put in place proper regulations governing the respective fishing areas to be targeted by long liners so that conflict with the trawl sector is avoided. And then enforce these rules.  

Problem solved.